Band of Brothers
by CarlieD
Summary: Expansion on numerous stories. Bound together by friendship, family, Israeli sense of duty and tragedy – the class of 2000. The Beth Shalom class would survive tragedy in all its ugly forms... together.
1. Prologue: Graduation

_Expansion on numerous stories. Bound together by friendship, family, Israeli sense of duty and tragedy – the class of 2000. The Beth Shalom class would survive tragedy in all its ugly forms... together._

DISCLAIMER: I don't any of the characters from NCIS.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a backstory on a few different WIPs right now. Any of my stories that mention Beth Shalom or its members (Where No Counsel Is, Hero of Israel) have the same backstory in regards to Ziva's school years.

* * *

**Prologue – June 27, 2000**

Their parents would've been horrified if they could've seen the party that their newly graduated teenagers had built. All of those Mossad agents and directors who had sent their so-called responsible young adults off to an 'innocent celebration'…

* * *

"Motel, Motel, our little rabbi, come have a drink!" Sulaiman laughed, slinging one friendly arm around the poor bespectacled young man as he handed him a bottle of beer. "Trust us, you will enjoy the night so much more!"

Motel eyed the bottle in suspicion. "No, I don't think so," he said finally.

"How do you expect to survive IDF, Mordecai Horowitz, if you don't _drink_ every once in a while?" Kemuel said, slinging his arm around Motel from the other side.

"Where is the music in this place?" Yael yelled as he entered with more drinks, aided by two other graduating students. "Malachi, turn the music on! This is a party! Motel, have a drink before you pass out!"

Malachi cranked up the volume on the music station he was setting up in the corner of the abandoned warehouse. "Loud enough for you, Yael?"

"I can still hear you, Malachi!"

"Where are the girls?" Hiram yelled over the beat as he came in with a few more of the Beth Shalom graduating class. "I thought for sure Ziva would be here by now!"

"Don't complain, Hiram!" Sulaiman yelled back, clapping Motel on the shoulder and shoving the beer into his hand with a final admonition of, "Motel, _drink_!"

"We get a head start on her this way!" Yael laughed as he joined his classmates. "We can be good and drunk by the time she arrives and she will have to play catch-up!"

"Don't kill her, Yael!" Malachi admonished. "Do you _want_ Deputy Director David angry at you?"

"Why is my father angry at Yael?" came Ziva's voice from behind Kemuel. She grinned at her classmates, already taking a swig from one bottle.

"He's not," Yael returned.

"Good! He's angry enough at me," Ziva laughed, passing the drink to Rafi as he showed up.

"Why?"

"Because I brought Tali."

"Tali!" the other boys exclaimed as Ziva's 16-year-old sister appeared amongst them, accompanied by David.

"Come to crash our party, then, have you?"

"Not much of a party right now," Tali replied with a smile and a laugh, tossing her long curls back over her shoulder as she pulled her sister's drink from Rafi's hands. "Come on, let's dance!" she yelled, passing the drink back to Ziva.

"I second the little lady's motion!" David exclaimed, pulling her out into the open space.

Ziva laughed again, crossing over to where Motel was hurriedly trying to replace the untouched drink before he was accosted by classmates.

"Ziva, I will not drink that, no matter what you threaten!" Motel exclaimed, just as she grinned and lightly slapped his face.

"Good, Motel, you _do_ have a backbone! Perhaps you aren't quite hopeless yet!"

* * *

Ziva and Rafi hadn't even had time to let the sweat cool when they heard the explosions and the screams.

"Damn it, what's happened?" Rafi muttered as they quickly redressed and dashed out from the weapons carrier.

The warehouse was smoking, flames licking up in huge tongues as the graduates all began leaving, two of them pulling motionless bodies with them.

"Oh, my God, Tali!" Ziva screamed as she saw Simon lay down the young teen. "No, Tali!"

"What happened?" Rafi demanded of Kemuel as Zelig dropped David's body to the pavement next to Tali.

"I don't know, I don't know," Kemuel said frantically, as Etan was desperately trying to find a signal to dial emergency.

"A bomber," Myriam gasped, collapsing to the pavement with a few others. "A suicide bomber. Maybe Hamas… He just walked in. He walked in and David and Tali were the only ones close enough to be hit by the blast and the shrapnel…"

* * *

It was sheer chaos when Mossad arrived, mostly the parents of said graduates.

"Everybody's name is going on the record!" Director David roared as he angrily yanked his daughter up from the ground where she knelt next to her sister's body. "All of you, in a line, present your name, unit and ID number to Officer Bashan!" The director pretty much threw Ziva to the front of the line. "Beginning with you!"

"As usual, Ziva's the first on the record," Yehudi muttered under his breath to Etan.

"David, Ziva. Komemuite 200007," Ziva said dully, moving aside to let the rest of her classmates do the same.

"Rosen, Simon. Intelligence 200020."

"Meyer, Lev. Komemuite 200017."

"Horowitz, Mordecai. Administration 200012."

"Davidovich, Hiram. Judiciary Courts 200008."

"Ben-Tsion, Sulaiman. Komemuite 200004."

"Rogel, Myriam. Komemuite 200018."

"Rosen, Reuven. No unit, 200019."

"Sachar, Sarah. No unit, 200021."

"Bashan, Kemuel. Komemuite, 200002."

"Mikkelssen, Yael. Intelligence, 200016."

"Ha-Or, Yehudi. State Security, 200010."

"Heidelmann, Zelig. Intelligence, 200011."

"Meir, Malachi. Intelligence, 200014."

"Bashan, Raphael. Komemuite, 200003."

"Cohen, Chaim. Judiciary Courts, 200005."

"Mogen, Leib. Public Relations, 200017."

"Bar-Abba, Etan. State Security, 200001."

"Lubetkin, Zion. Komemuite, 200013."


	2. Kindergarten

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of NCIS.

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: KINDERGARTEN**

_Goodnight, goodnight sweet child_

_Why don't you dream with the angels to forget for a while_

_To forget of the life that's been handed to you_

_Where everything's real yet nothing is true_

_(__Children__, The Mavericks)_

Oksana Domenic had never quite understood how parents could enroll their children in Beth Shalom. For thirty years, since the school's founding, she had been teaching the kindergarten – the entry-level class, the young and innocent ones. And every year, she watched as the little ones she had played with in her classroom grew a little older, a little wiser, and a little less like children every day.

Today was no different. Today was the beginning of another school year – this year she had twenty-one happy young children to arrive. Seventeen boys, four girls – all children of directors or officers within Mossad.

* * *

At 0745 precise, she received her first student: a bright-eyed, glowing face with long black curls pulled back into the braids that Oksana had noticed were common among the little girls of the area.

"No, Tali, you can't stay with me," the little girl was scolding the smaller one as her mother was pulling off her jacket and greeting Oksana. "Mama, I can do it myself!"

"You must be Ms Domenic," the mother said tiredly, giving her elder daughter a light smack on the cheek. "Enough from you, banshee. Leave Tali alone, or I will make sure that Father will find a suitable punishment for tormenting her tonight."

The father was clearly the Mossad officer in the family, as was the case with most of these families. It was only in recent years that the girls had begun to be enrolled. The officer parent was almost never the one who brought the children or picked them up.

"Ari is coming tonight, Tali," the little girl continued, unfazed by her mother's half-hearted threat as she tugged at one braid uncomfortably. "He's bringing his motorcycle, you know. Maybe he'll let _you_ ride it this time."

"Nobody will be riding any motorcycles tonight," the mother said. "Tali, come. We will be back when school is done. Wait in the playground for us."

"Good morning," Oksana greeted with a smile as the girl waited until her mother was out of sight. Then she undid the braids with amazing swiftness and had shoved the elastics into her pockets within seconds. "Who are you?"

"David, Ziva," the girl replied immediately, as though she had been drilled on this very question. "Number 2-0-0-..." she paused momentarily, counting something on her fingers. "... 0-0-7," she finished triumphantly. "And I got the right number of zeros in and everything. Father will be pleased."

"Ziva David," Oksana said with a shake of her head as she watched the girl bolt off to examine the shelves of books in the corners. The deputy director's daughter – she should have realized that she would be the first to arrive.

"So, Ziva, come sit here for a moment," Oksana said, sitting down on the ground. "Tell me about your family." It would be at least another fifteen minutes before the other children began arriving. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"I have one brother and one sister. Ari's old, you know," Ziva said, leaning forward into her conversation. "Ari's almost 18. Almost a grown-up. And he's going to go far away to Edinburgh to become a doctor when he's a grown-up. Edinburgh's a very long way from Tel Aviv. It's even farther than Ghazzah, Ms Domenic, did you know that? He can't get there on his motorcycle. Tali doesn't like Ari's motorcycle. She thinks it's too noisy. But I like it – Ari goes fast when he's driving me. And Tali's only 3, she's hardly more than a baby any way."

Oksana frowned a moment, trying to recall an Ari David. She couldn't remember ever having the boy in her class. "Did your brother come here, Ziva, to Beth Shalom?"

"Oh, no," Ziva replied, getting to her feet again and wandering off toward another activity area to explore. "Ari wouldn't go to a Jewish school. Ari goes to a public school. He lives in Ghazzah with Dr Haswari. She doesn't like Mama very much. That's why Ari comes alone when he comes to Tel Aviv."

Oksana watched the little girl occupy herself for a little while. An illegitimate son. Not unusual among certain officers in Mossad, but a boy born to a Muslim mother? Now _that_ was unusual.

The door opened again and she recognized the next officer to enter: Michael Bashan. His older daughter Aviah had already passed through Oksana's class a number of years ago – the girl would be receiving her Mossad assignment soon.

"Shalom, Michael," Oksana said with a smile as he and his wife Elisheba brought in two young boys. "Ah, you've come to give me more Bashans?"

"Boys, tell Ms Domenic your names," Elisheba said gently.

"I'm Kemuel," said the boy on the right.

"And I'm Raphael," said the boy on the left.

"Now, go on, then, you two," Michael said with a laugh, kneeling down to wrap each boy into a brief hug. "Dad has to get back to Mossad. Have a good day. Mum will come pick you up at the end of the day."

It didn't take long for the twins to get involved in a rowdy game of chase with Ziva, all three laughing and shrieking as they dodged tables and chairs and shelving units. Oksana shook her head. This was definitely going to be an interesting year.

A whole batch of students arrived next. To Oksana's relief, nobody seemed to have trouble adding to their play, which was simply growing to accommodate.

* * *

By the time 0830 came around, she had every single student present, and she could tell already that Ziva arriving so early every day would create a problem – she was getting antsy, bored, unable to sit still. She would be one of the children assigned to State Security or Komemuite – something that got adrenaline flowing and required constant activity. The girl wouldn't be able to survive something more sedate like Intelligence or Judiciary Courts.

"Ziva, sit please!" Oksana called patiently as the other children were scrambling into chairs. Finally, Ziva sat down, albeit reluctantly. "Thank you, Ziva. Now, everybody knows what the role call is?"

"Yes, Ms Domenic," came the little voices from below her.

"But maybe I need to be reminded," Mordecai Horowitz spoke up timidly.

"It's when they call your number and you answer, Motel, don't be silly," Ziva said impatiently.

"But I don't know my number, Ms Domenic," Motel said anxiously. "Daddy said I didn't need to know it until I was 10, Ms Domenic. Do I lose if I don't know it?"

"I don't know my number either, Ms Domenic," Reuven Rosen added.

"Me either, Ms Domenic."

"Me too, Ms Domenic."

"Everybody calm down," Oksana called over the sounds of anxious 5-year-olds. "Nobody needs to know their number yet."

"Father said I did," Ziva said.

"Nobody needs to know their number now," Oksana repeated.

* * *

She brought the children out into the playground to enjoy the last nice days of summer in the afternoon once their lessons were done.

When the founders had first begun to think of locations for Beth Shalom back in 1957, they originally had considered placing their small little school in an unused wing of Mossad headquarters. The early-years teachers – all civilians – had all protested that idea – the children needed a quiet place, a place away from the hustle and bustle of Mossad's day-to-day business. Maybe in later years, the older ones could have classes there – the teenagers, the ones with internships at Mossad, whose classes were taught by Mossad Education officers.

The school now was located not far from Mossad headquarters, in a quiet plot of city land. They had the play equipment for the young ones, a quad area for the teenagers, sport fields. The yard was fenced and unguarded – another original thought had been to place guards at the entrance, but what better way to scare the children than to have guards at the entrance of their school, checking IDs and registration every day?

Oksana sat down on the edge of the sand fencing to watch her new class play on the structure and drill herself on names and parents. Knowing the parents was extremely important in Beth Shalom. If she didn't know which child belonged to which officer, she got written up. If an incident were ever to occur at Beth Shalom, she needed to know where she was sending the child in Mossad headquarters.

Three of the girls had gathered in a corner of one main thoroughfare platform, deep in some sort of role-play game: Sarah Sachar, daughter of Administration Officer Aaron Sachar, Myriam Rogel, daughter of Komemuite Officer Wilhem Rogel, and Caterina D'Angelo, daughter of Judiciary Courts Officer Alessandro D'Angelo.

Her poor, meek little Motel, son of IDF Liaison Officer Namir Horowitz, had managed to hide himself away from the general activity underneath the structure, building castles in the sand.

Zelig Heidelmann, son of Intelligence Officer Jakob Heidelmann, was busy trying to scale the outside edges of the structure, closely followed by Lev Meyer, son of Intelligence Officer Samuel Meyer, and Sulaiman Ben-Tsion, son of State Security Officer Zahara Ben-Tsion.

Zion Lubetkin, son of European Operations Officer Hillel Lubetkin, and Leib Mogen, son of Public Relations Officer Oren Mogen, were busy playing kickball in the field against Etan Bar-Abba, son of Komemuite Officer Erich Bar-Abba, and David Edenberg, son of Foreign Operations Director Frederik Edenberg.

Yehudi Ha-Or, son of Intelligence Officer Alina Ha-Or and South American Operations Officer Adlai Ha-Or, was busy hunting for what was likely some sort of little-boy treasure in the grass with Yael Mikkelssen, son of Scandinavian Operations Officer Jaako Mikkelssen.

Raphael and Kemuel Bashan, sons of North American Operations Officer Michael Bashan, were playing tag with Chaim Cohen, son of Komemuite Officer Ariel Cohen, Hiram Davidovich, son of Russian Operations Officer Alexei Davidovich, and Malachi Meir, son of Administration Officer Rosa Meir.

Simon Rosen, son of State Security Director Karl Rosen, and his cousin, Reuven Rosen, son of Internal Affairs Director Bernard Rosen, were both involved in an elaborate twig construction on a nearby grassy area.

And where was Deputy Director David's daughter? Where was Ziva?

"Ms Domenic," Ziva asked as she sat down beside Oksana abruptly. "Ms Domenic, is it a crime to like people who aren't Jewish?"

"No, of course not, Ziva," Oksana replied, now completely bewildered by this child. What sort of 5-year-old asked these sorts of questions?

"That's good. I wouldn't want to have to hate Ari. Or Ismael. Ismael is my friend down the street, you know. His father runs a store in the market. They moved here from Jordan. They're Muslim too. Ari is coming to see us tonight. He's driving on his motorcycle all the way from Ghazzah right after school to come see us, because it's Tali's birthday today, she's turning 3."

"That's exciting, Ziva," Oksana said with a smile. "Do you see Ari often?"

"Not a lot. Sometimes he comes on weekends. He came for Pesach once."

* * *

The weeks passed, the months passed. Soon it was spring and Mossad had received a threat against Beth Shalom. Beth Shalom was in lock-down, the younger children all congregated in the gymnasium to sleep whilst the older teens were charged with guarding the entrances and exits, along with their Mossad instructors.

"Ms Domenic, can I go sleep in my bed yet?" came more than one little plea that night, as Oksana tucked children into sleeping bags over and over again, soothing frightened kindergartners.

"No, Caterina, not yet," she said gently.

"Ms Domenic," Simon called. "Sulaiman is kicking in his sleep and it bothers me!"

"Just ignore it, Simon," Oksana sighed.

"But I can't sleep, Ms Domenic," Simon insisted.

"Ms Domenic, the floor is too hard," Yael whined.

"Ms Domenic, I'm not sleepy," Hiram complained. "And Chaim is snoring."

"Ms Domenic, I have to go to the bathroom," Myriam called. No less than six other children all voiced the same desire.

It took the better part of four hours for the entire class to fall asleep. Finally, Oksana could sit down against the wall to supervise her exhausted brood. Understandably, she was a little startled when, the second she had closed her eyes to sleep, a small warm body had climbed into her lap. "Ms Domenic?"

"Yes, Ziva?" she asked tiredly.

"May I sleep here with you? I'm a little scared."

Oksana sighed. "Very well, Ziva. But you have to sleep."

* * *

The next morning, classes resumed as usual. However, Oksana found her class cranky, unable to concentrate and prone to tears due to their upset in routine and their lack of sleep the night before. Their breakfast had been cereal bars from the school stores instead of the more filling breakfasts she was certain they got at home. Nobody had been able to bathe or to change clothes – Caterina was particularly upset about that. There had been gunfire outside the school in the early morning hours and the children were all frightened of every sudden loud noise and scared that their parents had been killed.

Finally, when normally-placid Motel had gotten into a fight with Raphael, whom he normally avoided like the plague, Oksana stopped their lessons and called an impromptu naptime. Exhausted, none of the children fought the order.

They were still fast asleep four hours later, when the officers began dropping by to pick up their children – the Education officers had all enforced the officer-pickup today as a security measure. The one exception was Etan, whose father was away on a mission, and his mother came very promptly at 1530 to scoop up her tired son into her arms.

* * *

Ziva was the last to be picked up, and it was 1800 before somebody arrived to pick her up. Not the deputy director – Oksana had somewhat doubted his arrival. Not her mother either. No, a motorcycle had pulled up outside the gates and a young man surfaced from beneath the helmet, addressing the guards outside the gate and showing ID.

"Ari!" Ziva squealed excitedly, dashing impatiently from the classroom window to the door. "Ms Domenic, may I leave?"

"Come then, Ziva, I suppose we can meet him outside," Oksana laughed.

Ziva laughed with delight and dashed out ahead of her, flinging herself at her brother as soon as she had reached the schoolyard. The young man laughed and returned her hug and kiss. "Shalom, Ms Domenic!" she called, waving behind her as Ari began carrying her back to his motorcycle.

Oksana laughed and waved back. "Shalom, Ziva."

* * *

It was the last day of school, and Oksana was finishing her year-end reports on each child, declaring each of them ready for first grade.

She looked up for a moment, watching the children as they were playing kickball in the summer sun. All of them, even girlish little Caterina and terrified little Motel. They had all made such astounding progress this year: from twenty-one solitary little souls to a close-knit group of best friends. You would just as soon see Raphael and Kemuel roughhousing with each other as you would see them building a castle in the sand with Simon and Reuven. Ziva was just as likely to be playing soldier with Sulaiman as she was to be drawing a picture with Sarah.

She hoped that they would survive their years of school together. So many of the children became disillusioned and without the same careless joy. They became focused on the fate which had been handed to them by their forefathers, intent on survival and the immediate, if brief interaction of temporary love.

"Ms Domenic?" Ziva asked, sitting down next to her. "Will you be teaching us again next year?"

"No, Ziva, you'll have a new teacher," Oksana replied.

"Oh. Okay, then. I'll say goodbye. Mama is here. We're going to Haifa for the summer like we always do. Ari might even come for a little while before he leaves for Edinburgh." Impulsively, Ziva hugged Oksana. "Goodbye, Ms Domenic."

"Goodbye, Ziva," Oksana replied. "You've been a perfectly lovely student. Have fun in Haifa."

And as Oksana watched her students trickle out one by one, she felt the same sense of loss. Another year over, and another summer of wondering where the children would go.


	3. Grade 1

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of NCIS.

* * *

**Chapter 2: First Grade**

_In my field of paper flowers_

_And candy clouds of lullaby_

_I lie inside myself for hours_

_And watch my purple sky fly over me_

_(__Imaginary__, Evanescence)_

Anna Guerin looked around her once-immaculate classroom. 'Once' being the operative word. At 0830, she had all 21 students in the classroom, still in 'outside' mode. She hated this part – they always came from Oksana still wild and mistaken in the impression that a classroom could double as a gymnasium.

A shriek from Ziva in the back of the room interrupted her thoughts.

"Rafi! Rafi, stop it!" the girl was laughing, pushing back the boy trying to pounce on her with his brother. "Kemuel, Kemuel, stop him!"

Simon jumped to Ziva's aid, brandishing an invisible sword. "I challenge you to a duel!"

"I accept your challenge!" Rafi exclaimed in return, taking out his own invisible sword. "Quick on your feet, Officer Rosen!"

"You must be quicker, Officer Bashan, if you want to beat me!"

"Ah-ha, a duel!" Malachi exclaimed, joining in. "We are at war, my team! Motel, Motel, come to our aid!"

"But I'm not a very good fighter," Motel protested.

"Who will be Hamas?" Kemuel asked. "Sulaiman, you be the Hamas captain!"

"Just because I'm half-Arab doesn't mean I'm Hamas!" Sulaiman protested.

Anna sighed. In a way, it was sad. These children, unlike the students in the European public schools she had taught in, always seemed to first jump into play battles rather than ordinary children's play.

"All right, all right, all you sit down!" Anna called over the yells of the children. "Find your name on the card taped to your desk!"

There was a brief scramble, and then confused silence. Only Caterina and Yael seemed to be able to find their spot. "Um, Ms Guerin?" Simon spoke up. "I can't find my name."

"Where's the Hebrew?" Ziva asked.

And the children hadn't yet learned Roman lettering. Silently, Anna cursed Oksana once more. She was tired of the same recurring problem every year. They were _supposed_ to learn Roman lettering in kindergarten.

"I don't know how to read that," Etan said uneasily.

Sighing, Anna turned to the blackboard and began writing out the Roman alphabet, listing each child's name in Hebrew beneath the appropriate letter, praying that she'd gotten all the right dots in the right places and dashes where there should have been dashes. Written Hebrew was not her strong point. "Look for that letter." There was another desperate scramble.

"Yehudi, this is _my_ name!" Yael protested as Yehudi stopped by his desk. "Your name is _longer_!"

"Chaim, that's not your name!" Caterina exclaimed as Chaim tried to oust her from her desk. "That says Caterina!"

"Yael and Caterina are in the right desks!" Anna called. "They can read these letters!"

"Ms Guerin, you didn't spell my name right," Zion spoke up.

"Or mine," Ziva added. Both children came up to the front, squabbled over the chalk for a moment and then Ziva climbed up on a chair to fix the lettering. She took the dot off the first character on her name and placed it over Zion's, then erased the dash beneath his second character and put it beneath hers.

"You don't even know how to spell, Ms Guerin," Zion said accusingly.

Anna sighed and rubbed her temples. This was going to be a long year.

* * *

"But why do we even have to know this?" Anna heard Hiram complaining to Reuven as the class was released for midday recess.

"Yeah, I mean, it's not like we talk English all the time," Zelig agreed. "We never talk English."

"You don't use those letters only for English," Caterina pointed out. "We use them at home to write Italian when we're writing a letter to Nona in Rome."

"And we use some of them to write Finnish to Papi in Finland," Yael added.

"Papa uses some of them when he's writing work things," Ziva said. "But we know Hebrew and Arabic and Yiddish. Isn't that enough?"

"I don't know Yiddish," Etan spoke up.

"That's because your ancestors were always in Palestine, Etan. The rest of us came from Europe and they speak Yiddish there."

"Yeah, that's all you need to know," Kemuel piped up. "Why do we need to learn English?"

"It sounds complicated," Sarah grumbled. "Did you hear Ms Guerin when she said some of the letters make more than one sound? And there's not really any rules?"

"How's anybody supposed to learn a language when there are no rules?" Zion asked with a wrinkle of his nose. "You need rules to learn things."

* * *

"Ms Guerin," Ziva asked one day as the class was working on math homework quietly. "Ms Guerin, what does 'whore' mean?"

"That's a _bad_ word, Ziva," Leib said with wide eyes. "You're not supposed to use that word."

"Daddy said he'd cut my tongue out of my mouth like Hamas if I ever used that word," David said matter-of-factly. "_Ever_."

"My daddy said he'd wash my mouth out with soap," Malachi added.

"Mama says it's not a very polite word and only bad people use it," Sulaiman said, then jumped as Ziva whirled around and yelled,

"Father is _not_ bad! He's _your _mother's _boss_ and when I tell him you said he was bad, he's going to – "

"Everybody calm down!" Anna said authoritatively. "Ziva, do not threaten Sulaiman like that. He's right, it's not a very polite word. Everybody go back to your work, and Ziva, come with me." She took the young girl out into the hallway. "Ziva, what's going on? Who did your father call that?"

"He called Mama that," Ziva said. "Because... because he found out her secret. I promised Mama I wouldn't tell _anybody_ the secret, not even Father."

* * *

Winter was quickly approaching, and Anna began to notice the changes in the children and their families. Some, like Yael and Caterina, talked about going to visit relatives in other countries for Chanukah. Others, such as Zion and Zelig, talked about relatives coming to Israel for Chanukah. Raphael and Kemuel, Simon, Sarah and Myriam all had older siblings coming home from IDF or foreign Mossad assignments.

Finally, on the last day before winter break, Anna stopped lessons. "What is everybody doing for Chanukah?" she asked the children. Twenty little voices all began clamouring for the spotlight. The only one silent was Ziva, who had her head on her arms with a morose look on her face. "Ziva?" she asked gently. "What is your family doing for Chanukah?"

"Nothing," Ziva said grumpily.

"Ziva, it's a big holiday. You must be doing something," Anna cajoled.

"We're not doing _anything_!" Ziva snapped at her angrily. "Are you _stupid_?"

"Ziva, go see Officer Ben-Oni," Anna said sternly. "You know better than to speak like that to a teacher." Angrily, Ziva stormed out, and Anna shook her head in amazement. "What is going on with that girl?" she muttered.

"Her mama left yesterday," Kemuel spoke up quietly. "I heard Mommy telling Daddy that."

"Ms Guerin, why would Ziva's mama leave?" Myriam asked. "Mommys aren't supposed to leave."

"It must only be for a little while," Etan answered his classmate. "Like when Mossad sends Daddy away on missions. Mommys don't leave forever."

"Mine leaves all the time," Sulaiman commented.

"Mommy told Daddy that Mrs David moved to England," Rafi countered. "When you move, it's forever. Right, Ms Guerin?"

"Usually, Rafi," Anna admitted. "Now, you are all to stop talking about Ziva when she's not here. That's called gossip and it's very impolite."

"We're not talking about Ziva," Sarah protested.

"We're talking about mommies," Caterina said.

* * *

Anna noticed a change in her student after that revelation. She found Ziva sitting on her own more and more often, watching her classmates playing outside and Deputy Director David's assistant became the pick-up person. She could tell when the housekeeper had taken the day off, when Ziva would show up in the mornings a little more disheveled than normal and she was either missing a lunch or had a very oddly-packed lunch.

"Ziva, sweetheart," she said in the springtime, after school had ended and Ziva was still waiting for her father's assistant to come pick her up. "You can't sit here forever."

"Father said I had to wait until somebody came to pick me up," Ziva replied softly. "Maybe he's just in another meeting. Sometimes he has very important meetings. Maybe Ari will come today. He's coming from Edinburgh today. He's going to be in Tel Aviv for two months. But we don't know what two months. He might go see Dr Haswari first." She paused. "Did you know the sky isn't really blue, Ms Guerin? Ari told me that. We only think it's blue."

"Well, then, what colour _is_ the sky, Ziva?" Anna laughed.

"Any colour you want to be. It's all the colours. Sometimes I like thinking the sky is purple. Like grapes."

* * *

"Ziva, pass me green for the stalks!" Sarah ordered, reaching for the green marker.

"Caterina, you have to cut faster," Motel said as he added another flower to the box.

"What are you all doing over here?" Anna asked curiously – she had come into the class after the midday break to find all twenty-one busy in this project, which seemed to involve a lot of markers and a lot of papers and a lot more scissoring than Anna felt comfortable with.

"We're making flowers," Zelig spoke up, began to cut around the outlines of a daisy-like flower.

"For Yom HaShoah," David agreed, counting out the flowers in his box. "We're going to put them at Yad Vashem when we leave for Jerusalem tonight." Every year at Yom HaShoah, Beth Shalom took all of its students to the memorial service there – a yearly reminder of what they would be fighting.

"One flower for all the Jews who died because people didn't like them," Rafi said.

"So, you see, Ms Guerin, we have a little ways to go yet," Kemuel said logically. "We thought if we all did some, we might make enough."

Anna bit her lip and held back the urge to cry. Oh, the innocence of being 7. "That's a wonderful idea, guys," she said quietly. "May I join you?"

* * *

The last day of school came all too quickly. Anna had packed up her classroom, handed in her final report and was ready to leave, go back to her old position at Chenwick Elementary. She couldn't handle another year of Beth Shalom.

"We're going to Haifa, Ms Guerin!" Ziva said excitedly as she managed to climb on top of the monkey bars on the structure. "We're leaving right when Father gets home from Mossad."

"Ziva, get down from there, you'll break your neck," Anna called.

She heard the roar of a motorcycle behind her on the drive leading into Beth Shalom. Turning around, she tried to figure out who it was. Komemuite often used motorcycles, she knew that, but the driver was too young to be an officer. Or was he? No, he couldn't be, not with a small girl riding with him.

She heard him call somebody in Arabic and her heart stopped dead in its tracks. No. No, there couldn't be a security breach on her last day in Israel.

"Ari!" Ziva yelled from the bars. "Ari!"

The young man laughed and came up to catch her when she jumped off the bars. He gave her a quick hug and kiss and then ruffled her hair affectionately. Passing her a helmet, he took her schoolbag and put it inside the side saddles.

"Bye, Ms Guerin!" Ziva called as she pulled on the helmet.

"Bye, Ziva!" Sarah called, waving at her friend. "We'll see you next year!"

Anna could only shake her head as she watched the motorcycle drive off.


	4. Grade 2

**Chapter 3: Second Grade**

_That which heals your cuts and kisses your scars_

_And watches every broken unicorn get a chance to regrow its horn_

_May not get to be there when the bandages come off_

_(__Spring__, John Craigie)_

Joanna Martens sighed as she went out to collect her new class. She'd heard horror stories about this class. They had been the breaking point for Anna. But honestly, they were seven years old. How demonic could they be?

Maybe today was the wrong day to ask. When she got out to the schoolyard, she already had a three-way fight to break up and five children to bandage. And none of those five children had been involved in the fight.

"What's going on here?" she demanded, hauling one dusty, bleeding boy to his feet and away from his victim. None too gently, she yanked the girl who had attacked the second boy away.

"He called half-Arabs as bad as whole Arabs!" the girl screamed.

"Dad said that it was a half-Arab who killed Yaakov!" the boy howled back at her as he got to his feet. "I hate them all! I'm going to kill all of them when I'm in Mossad!"

"_I'm_ half-Arab!" the boy attacker yelled.

"My _brother's_ half-Arab!" the girl screamed again.

"Everybody shut up!" Joanna yelled. Startled at the harsh order, the children fell silent. "Now somebody explain to me why you're fighting."

One little girl spoke up nervously. "Well, Simon said he thought that half-Arabs were as bad as whole Arabs, and then Sulaiman and Ziva started hitting him."

"Shut up, Myriam, what do you know?" Sulaiman snapped.

"You, enough!" Joanna ordered. "All of you, inside, right now!"

***

"Now, you are all going to practice your English while I'm sorting through dossiers. There will be no fighting, no whispering, no looking at each other's papers. You have breaks to play. Now is the time to work. Are we quite clear on this?"

"Yes, Ms Martens," the class echoed sullenly.

"I don't wanna practice English," one boy spoke up. "Can't we just have break now?"

Joanna rifled quickly through the student dossiers, searching for the picture to associate with the boy. "Mr.… Bashan, get to work. Are you Raphael or Kemuel?"

"Rafi."

***

"Ms Martens?" Caterina asked one nippy autumn afternoon as Joanna was trying to get the class calmed down enough to head for the gymnasium. "Ms Martens, why don't all the kids go to the gymnasium when Mossad tells us to?"

"Yeah, Ms Martens, why can't we help guard the school?" Yehudi asked, letting out a yell of surprise when Kemuel jumped him. "Kem, get off!"

"In your order, boys!" Joanna roared. "I don't want a single officer coming to complain about my class, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," the class echoed, Simon and Reuven getting into a brief tussle.

"All right, sound off, all of you!" Officer Rosen ordered as he came to the second grade class.

"Bar-Abba," Etan started off, and from there, each child reported their last name to him.

"Good job, now hang tight while we're sorting through this," he said with a slight smile, ruffling Reuven's hair before he left.

"Everybody sit down, we're going to keep working," Joanna said with a sigh.

***

"Ms Martens?" Simon asked right around winter break. "Ms Martens, if somebody does something bad, does that mean all the people are bad?"

Joanna looked up from the papers she was correcting. "Go back to your work, Simon." What was she supposed to say without crossing the line Mossad had drawn? The Education officers had been quite clear on that point: the children could not afford to second-guess on motive or criminality. They had to learn on their own that where one terrorist was, there was definitely a dozen more nearby.

"No, it doesn't, Simon," Kemuel spoke up. "The Muslim boy who lives down the street from us and Ziva is nice, even though his brother's Hamas. Just 'cause Kamal's bad doesn't mean that Ismael's bad. Dad told us that, and Dad knows everything."

"Kemuel, back to work," Joanna chided. Things had been quiet in the last few months – a little too quiet. Something would blow up, and soon, and whether it would be Hamas, Hezbollah or Israeli, it would be big.

"But Ms Martens, Kemuel's right," Ziva spoke up. "Ismael is nice. He'd never hurt anybody. Why would somebody want to blow up Ismael?"

"Why would somebody want to blow up _us_?" Myriam added. "We're only kids."

"Everybody's eyes will return to their papers, and their pencils will start writing again," Joanna said warningly.

***

It was strange, how she felt the blast before she heard it. The burning pain of fire and shrapnel shredding her body, right before the resounding explosion blew out her eardrums.

***

Jessica Romel stood outside the doors of Beth Shalom, waiting for her new class to arrive from winter break.

Her instructor had been warning her for the past two weeks that this was the biggest assignment a Beth Shalom cadet had ever been given. She couldn't blow it. She was training as an Education officer, and this was the ultimate test.

"Relax, Jessica, you have them while they're still relatively young," Oksana said softly, smiling as her first kindergartner came up to her. "They shouldn't be too unruly. Good morning, Tali – how was your Chanukah?"

Jessica took a deep breath and nodded.

***

"Where's Ms Martens?" one boy asked plaintively.

"I know you, you're not even graduated yet!" another said. "My sister's in your class!"

"Why isn't Ms Martens here?"

Jessica called, "Everybody in their seats, we aren't out on the playground!"

"Why should we listen to you, you're not our teacher!"

"Ms Martens was killed in Tel Aviv Square over winter break. I'm taking over until the end of the year, so yes, I am your teacher! Sit down!"

"She really blew up?" one girl asked warily. "Ms Martens? She really did?"

Jessica sighed. "Yes. Now, everybody sit down."

***

Jessica rubbed the back of her neck tiredly. The sun was setting and she still couldn't go home: as usual, Ziva David's father had forgotten to pick her up – but since he was deputy director, he never received the same reprimands as any other officer would.

"I want to go home, Ziva…" little Tali whined, tears of exhaustion and frustration in her eyes.

"Ziva," Jessica said quietly. "Call your father at Mossad."

"Father's gone in a meeting in America with Officer Bashan," Ziva said softly. "Ari is supposed to come pick us up when he comes from Edinburgh."

"Who's Ari?" Jessica asked with a frown. "Why is he coming from Scotland?"

"Ari's our brother," Tali spoke up. "He lives in Edinburgh."

"But only when it's school time there," Ziva added. "He stays in Tel Aviv and in Ghazzah in the summer."

"Well, call Ari then."

"We can't," Tali protested. "Ari's coming to pick us up from the airport."

"Ari doesn't have a radio," Ziva explained.

***

The sun had long since set over Tel Aviv. Resigning herself to a fitful night's sleep on the floor, Jessica had pulled out a couple of the sleeping bags from storage for the girls. Nobody was answering at the David house. The deputy director's office was empty, since he was away.

Tali was crying in upset as she crawled into her sleeping bag. Ziva's eyes were darkened with uncertainty and fear even as she curled up to sleep. Jessica was ready to kill.

By the time both little girls had fallen asleep, Jessica had just started to drift off herself. Then the bangs started at the front doors. Groaning, Jessica got up again and headed for the doors. Outside was an Arab woman.

"Can I help you?" Jessica asked warily, and the woman looked at her.

"I'm Dr Hasmia Haswari, I'm here for Ziva and Tali," she said briskly. "My son called to warn me that his plane was making an emergency landing in Munich. He asked me to come pick the girls up. Apparently Benjamin has left without warning again."

"Dr Haswari," came Ziva's soft question in Arabic from behind Jessica, "where is Ari?"

"It appears, Ziva, that there's some sort of thunderstorm in Munich. Ari's plane cannot leave Germany until it's cleared."

"So are we just sleeping at Beth Shalom, then?" Ziva asked uncertainly. "We… we don't go to Ghazzah. Ari says that you'll never go inside our house again."

Dr Haswari sighed. "I will break my rules just this once. I'll stay in Tel Aviv with you until Ari comes."

***

Having a mother-figure in the house clearly agreed with Ziva, as Jessica noticed over the next few days. For the first time in a long time, she could see that the little girl was sleeping enough, eating enough, came to school with her hair washed and brushed and a proper lunch in her backpack.

Then the deputy director returned and things went back to their normal hectic selves.

***

As the year began to come to a close, Jessica was called into her final evaluation by the Education officers.

"Miss Romel, you know that this last term has been a test of your abilities to perform the duties required of an Education officer," Officer Ben-Oni, the Education Director. "In terms of overall accomplishments, you've passed with flying colours. The second-grade curriculum was completed in an efficient and effective manner, and the other officers agree that this class will be prepared for Thomas' class next year."

Jessica slowly relaxed, before Officer Ben-Oni continued. "Thank you, sir."

"Save the thanks, Miss Romel. However, your disregard for student security is appalling, and quite frankly, rather alarming."

Jessica's heart stopped. "I'm sorry, sir?"

"In May, the deputy director was away from Tel Aviv, leaving his daughters in care of his son, Ari Haswari, who had clearance to access the grounds and pick up Ziva and Tali. That was not the person who came to pick the girls up, am I correct?"

Jessica nodded slowly. "That's right, sir. Ari's mother came to pick them up, her son had been delayed in Germany – "

"But you don't know that, Miss Romel," Officer Ben-Oni interrupted. "Doctor Hasmia Haswari has well-known links to Hamas. If their name is not on the clearance list, you do not release the student! For all you know, you could've been releasing the daughters of the deputy director of Mossad to Hamas!"

***

Jessica went out by herself that night, unable to face the sympathetic gazes of her fellow graduates. It was quite possibly one of the most humiliating dismissals a Beth Shalom graduate had ever been dealt, and she needed a lot of alcohol and some random encounter in a bar to drown the memory of it.

The young man was exactly what she'd been looking for: tall, dark, silent, handsome. When he had left her the next morning, the only thing she knew was his given name.

Ari.


End file.
